The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Xenoarchaeology. On a grand scale.

McDevitt really does a fantastic job with vast worldbuilding and mystery when it comes to dead alien races, exploration, and working through the questions.

I'm particularly fond of all the expeditions. None of them are nuts but quite plausible and dangerous and deadly. And not everyone comes back from them. The realism is very nice.

Fortunately, however, this and the plotting and the focus on discovery is usually good enough to carry the tale over the characters. The characters are interesting enough but some of the descriptions come off as either bland or not quite right. The heroic parts and the action sequences are spot-on, while the romantic bits... well, I'm not coming to these books for the romance. :)

Fortunately, there's no outright cringe-worthy stuff here. Just fascinating brainy adventure. I'm looking forward to future huge developments. I can see them on the far horizon. :) You know... like massive catastrophy for humanity. :)

View all my reviews